...if Gina wanted to make a takeover offer for LTR as LTR hopefuls can hope or dream, she would have already done so in early Feb when her 4 month moratorium ended, back then LTR was fetching 95c and now it is $1.30.
....Gina is aware of some issues LTR is facing including finance and operations, taking it over now is basically assuming all the risks and handing Tim Goyder and gang a big lottery goodbye handshake....so market participants being led to believe such 'dream' should not be so easily carried away. Rinehart turns 70 at legal and lithium crossroads
As Australia’s richest person hits her milestone birthday with no obvious successor, the market is testing Hancock Prospecting’s appetite for becoming a serious lithium force. Brad ThompsonReporter
Feb 7, 2024 – 5.45pm
Billionaire Gina Rinehart is set to hand out millions of dollars in prizes to workers across her business empire as part of celebrations to mark her 70th birthday on Friday.
Liontown Resources shareholders could be forgiven for wondering if they too will be thrown a bone.
This weekend marks exactly four months since Mrs Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting was buying Liontown shares on-market at as much as $3 apiece as part of what amounted to a $2 billion-plus foray into lithium in 2023.
Under the minimum bid provision of the Corporations Act, Hancock must wait four months if it wants to make a takeover bid below the $3 price paid in October.
That means Mrs Rinehart could knock on Liontown’s door on Monday morning with an offer closer to the 95¢ the stock was fetching on Wednesday. Or, she could take a more cautious approach.
Hancock accumulated most of its 19.9 per cent stake in the lithium hopeful while a $6.6 billion takeover offer from New York-listed Albemarle was on the table.
Albemarle pulled its offer in October and later quit its stake just days before Liontown revealed on January 22 that banks had pulled a $760 million funding package as lithium prices crashed.
It is understood Hancock has been in regular contact with Liontown seeking project updates and lithium market insights.
Hancock chief executive Garry Korte attended a lithium crisis meeting in Perth on January 24 that included Liontown boss Tony Ottaviano and Azure Minerals chairman Brian Thomas.
Liontown maintains its Kathleen Valley mine will be in production by mid-year. It sits next door to IGO’s now shuttered Cosmos nickel project in WA’s northern Goldfields.
In an example of beleaguered lithium and nickel miners helping one another out, Liontown is putting up some of its workers in Cosmos accommodation village and could hire some of the displaced IGO workforce.
Mrs Rinehart has at least one lithium prize – Azure – nearly in the bag after Chris Ellison’s Mineral Resources agreed to sell its 13.5 per cent stake into a $1.7 billion joint takeover bid launched by Hancock and Chilean giant SQM in December.
Hancock and SQM have now locked up 73.5 per cent of the stock after their bid, pitched at $3.70 a share, earlier won the support of other major shareholders in famed prospector Mark Creasy and Delphi Group.
Unless Hancock or SQM gets cold feet, Azure shareholders should get their hands of the scheme documents in the next fortnight
